NeoNews

And that's the way it is," Walter Cronkite used to say at the end of his news broadcasts. He would probably have a few questions about the News at Seven project from Northwestern University. Funded by the National Science Foundation, project researchers have devised sophisticated software that can automatically generate a virtual news show.

The completely autonomous software collects, parses, edits, and organizes news stories, which are then delivered at www.newsatseven.com by a virtual news anchor. The system looks beyond the text of news stories for relevant images and blogs and presents information to the audience using a graphical game engine and text-to-speech technology. Even the voices of the news anchors are modulated to sound lifelike.

"We will vary the content and presentation between shows, for international or local news, different anchors, different maps, and more," says project member Nathan Nichols. In its first iteration, News at Seven presents a daily short news clip, but it is intended to be an eventual replacement for a whole televised news show. It may also arrive in a version that will tailor news broadcasts to preferences that you supply. For example, you could listen to a newscast comprising only stories about Iraq.

Northwestern's experiment is part of a resurgence of avatars and virtual people. The popular virtual world Second Life is growing so rapidly that it may be time for sociologists to step in. And you can find many examples of avatars being used for marketing and support applications at www.oddcast.com. The Oddcast site contains a demonstration of Accuweather.com's virtual weather forecaster, and the virtual character who greets you will be happy to speak to you in any of 14 languagesincluding Mandarin.

Sebastian Rupley is Editorial Director for PCMagCast, PC Magazine's channel for live Web seminars and online events on tech topics for consumers and small businesses. Previously, he was West Coast Editor of PC Magazine for over a decade, where he oversaw news and feature stories for the publication, and represented the brand on panels and at conferences on the West Coast. He also served as Features Editor of PC/Computing magazine, managing and promoting many noted technology journalists.
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